Posted on 23 September 2024, 7:08

Thirty-five or more years ago, when I was doing a lot of sports writing, I began noting many paradoxes in various sports and started keeping a file on them.  I collected several dozen paradoxes, but more or less lost interest in the subject after a few years.  In more recent times, I’ve been noting many paradoxes in spiritual and related matters.  The one that really jumped out at me comes from a recent White Crow Books release, A Doorway to the Light, by Carmen De Sayve and Jocelyn Arellano (below).  The authors set forth much that they say has come to De Sayve from the spirit world by automatic writing, some from supposedly advanced spirits, others from earthbound spirits. One of the more advanced spirit explained why he (or she), while in the spirit world, decided to incarnate in the physical world.  “We decided to experience our ‘what is’ by living within ‘what is not’ and so understand the fullness of our beauty, harmony and happiness,” the spirit explained. “We needed painful experiences to be able to appreciate happiness; disharmony in order to know harmony; and the limitations of the physical world to appreciate our limitlessness.  The problem is that, once we are in the illusory world, we become so attached to it that we have difficulty leaving and returning to infinity where we belong.”

About the same day I read that in the book, I read a column titled “’Junkification of U.S. life,” by New York Times columnist David Brooks. He discusses the decline of cultural values in the United States, especially in the entertainment and art fields. “We’re now in a culture in which we want worse things [than what we had] – the cheap hit over the long flourishing.” He quotes psychiatrist Anna Lembke from her book, “Dopamine Nation”: “The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy.” More succinctly, the more pleasure we experience, the less happy we are. That sure sounds like the dilemma in today’s world. Isn’t that what Emperor Nero experienced when Rome burned?

It's sometimes difficult to distinguish a paradox from a conundrum, a Catch 22, an irony, or a simple enigma, but the key point seems to be that the result is the opposite of what you would expect. Drawing from the file I started 35 years ago, I pulled a clipping quoting the late George Carlin, a comedian, although another site gives credit to Dr. Bob Moorehead, a Christian pastor: “We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less, We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. … We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often…We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We’ve cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.”

One of the more common paradoxes is that “the more we study and seek knowledge, the more we realize how little we know.” Another is that the desire for fame leads to the desire for privacy. One of my favorite sports paradoxes is that Rocky Marciano, the undefeated heavyweight champion of the 1950s, couldn’t make it as a baseball catcher because he had a weak arm; however, his feared knockout punch with that same arm brought him great success and fame. That brings to mind a personal paradox going back to my high school days when the team doctor said that my slow heart rate (40 beats per minute) indicated a “weak” heart, i.e., slow is weak, and barred me from running on the track team. But a few years later, a military physician diagnosed my slow pulse as a strong heart, referred to as an “athletic heart,” and approved me for military service.

Real Combatants

A very puzzling paradox for me is seeing men in military uniforms lined up to get the autographs of football players – real combatants praising or idolizing pretend or play combatants.  Along the same line, there was a baseball player, whose name escapes me, that refused to give autographs.  Fans called him unfriendly and sportswriters labeled him arrogant. However, the fact is that he was a very friendly and humble person who did not feel himself worthy of giving autographs.  He was too humble for his own good. 

Another favorite sports paradox comes from John Madden, a Hall of Fame football coach, who said, “As a coach, I learned that the better the player, the less he knows why he does and what he does.”  And there’s the one about “trying too hard.”  If a ballplayer “swings for the fences,” he’ll more likely strike out, but if he just swings without the extra effort while focusing on just making contact, his chances of hitting a home run are much better. 

Safe driving on the road is paradoxical in that if a driver allows proper distance between his car and the car in front, he leaves enough space for another car to merge between them, thereby causing more hazardous conditions.

There was a time when people “dressed up” in fancy attire to demonstrate their affluence, but now they “dress down” with ripped and ragged Jeans with holes in the knees to express their individuality and stand out in the crowd. 

Back to anhedonia, experiencing too much pleasure. Perhaps the best example of this can be found in baseball. Efforts are regularly made to shorten the games, but if people are paying rising admission prices for the pleasure of watching a game, wouldn’t they get more pleasure out of a longer game? 

Catalysts, Not Hindrances 

Another recently released book, supported by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, An Urgent Message for Humanity, by Melvin Morse, M.D. and several other contributors, stresses the need to understand that adversity is, in effect, in our best interest.  Bad or negative experiences “are crucial for spiritual growth and that the challenges, difficulties, and even adversities are not merely obstacles but essential elements in our spiritual growth. These challenges are seen not as hindrances but as catalysts for growth and opportunities for learning, and they are necessary for the evolution of the human spirit.” 

Surprisingly, Morse, known for his research with near-death experiencers, and the other authors draw from a research project with a number of mediums, while often quoting Allan Kardec, the famous French psychical researcher of the 1850s and ‘60s.  “Everything happens for us to learn from it,” one medium (or the spirit entity communicating through the medium) is quoted. “There is no death, so why do you say that war and death are a horror? You will see that it is all gain; no one really dies or loses anything.”  It was further expressed through another medium that even “9-11 was given to us to help us spiritually.”  This message is said to have caused the medium extreme distress as she disagreed and didn’t understand it. 

The key message seems to be that in order to comprehend the greater reality, we must first recognize that we are incapable of understanding a timeless and spaceless world. However, if we admit that we can’t comprehend it, the question becomes what is the point of continuing with research to study it.  As I understand it, the gain comes from recognizing that the Nothingness of mainstream science and materialism, is really Everything and that in applying similes, analogies, metaphors and symbolisms to that Everything we can then experience a certain hope and peace of mind rather than suffer from the melancholy that accompanies despair, including anhedonia. 

A Thick Mist

The nihilists say that even if they are wrong, it is “one life at a time” for them.  Why concern oneself with what might or might not come after physical death? As philosopher William James said, such bravado often turns to “anxious trembling” as the nihilist approaches “extinction” and what he or she sees as the abyss of nothingness. But there is another reason to be concerned during this lifetime.  “If you believe there is nothing after death, then nothingness is what you will find: a thick mist of sorts that isolates you from both the spiritual and physical worlds,” De Sayve offers based on her spirit contacts. “It’s important to open our minds now to the idea of the soul’s survival in order to be better prepared to enter the astral plane.”  That message has come through many other mediums.

When Kardec asked whether knowledge of spirit life has any influence on one’s awakening on the other side and the fact that so many souls seem confused and don’t realize they have left the physical realm, the response from spirit was: “It exercises a very considerable influence on that duration, because it enables the spirit to understand beforehand the new situation in which it is about to find itself; but the practice of rectitude during the earthly life, and a clear conscience, are the conditions which conduce most powerfully to shorten [the initial confusion].”

While lack of time and space are deterrents to human understanding, the idea of eventually “merging into Oneness” with the Creator adds to the abstractness and the indifference to it all. It seems no more elating than spending eternity in a dentist’s chair under the influence of nitrous oxide.  However, more than a few advanced spirits have said that we retain our individuality in the merger.  “At the conclusion of our grand journey, we will again experience perfect unity, yet our individuality will continue, as well, and will live forever,” De Sayve recorded from a seemingly advanced spirit. And the advanced spirits constantly assure us that it is “lively” beyond what we can understand.

It all seems so absurd, but to quote Professor Charles Richet, a Nobel Prize winner, relative to his research into mediumship and related psychic matters:  “Yes, it is absurd, but no matter – it is true.” Sir William Crookes, a renowned British chemist and one of the pioneers of psychical research, put it this way: “I never said it was possible, I only said it was true.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, and Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I.
His latest book, No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife is published by White Crow books.

I completely agree, Don.  But back to paradoxes, someone asked me for the single best case of spirit communication and I had to go with the most absurd case—the Confucius voices reported by Professor Neville Whymant, but also adding in the voices that came through in a dozen other languages, including that of his father-in-law with his Cornwall accent.  There is no point in relating this story to a non-believer, or even some believers, as it so “far out” that no one in his right mind can help but laugh and dismiss it as ridiculous.  However, even a believer might still question whether it was actually the Confucius spirit or some group soul or even a very intelligent earth-bound spirit pretending to be Confucius. For anyone not familiar with the case, it was last discussed at this blog on May 24, 2021.  Even if a group soul or earthbound spirit, it suggests a spirit of some kind.

Thanks, Amos — I appreciate what you have to say and especially your observation about the temptation to view ourselves as “old souls.” I think most of us with an interest in these big existential questions have probably entertained that idea at some point. I know I have certainly have! Maybe there’s something inherently appealing about the idea that we are wise, advanced beings who have already learned many lessons and attained a certain level of spiritual mastery? Regardless, while the idea of being an “old soul” can be a seductive notion, I agree it’s important to approach it with self-awareness and humility. We are all works in progress, striving to grow and awaken in our own way.

Anthony,
Here again, the concerns you brought up deserve serious consideration and discussion.  For the most part I agree 100% with what you have written.  You comment that, “[C]oncepts like compassion, kindness, and even non-violence are universal spiritual values for good reason. They reduce suffering and create the conditions for all beings to thrive.”  Yes, exactly! and all of those things in one word is—-“love”.  Spirits have said over and over again that the over-riding force in the universe is love and that is what we all have to learn; the essential component of our spiritual evolution.  And that the consequences of failure to love may be severe, lasting many lifetimes.

I don’t know that I have a “view” formulated yet about these things and it is likely that whatever ideas I may have now will change as I learn more. I will never know enough to understand the basics of reality and spiritual evolution.  I am limited by language with which I struggle most of the time.  I guess I could say that I am a beginner, trying to understand who I really am and where I am going, if anywhere.  My deciphering of reality is mine and mine alone.  It is for each of us to find our own pathway to the divine.

In my younger days, I arrogantly thought that I was an ‘old soul,’ but now from the perspective of ‘old age’ I have come to understand that probably I am a very young soul, meaning that I still have a lot to learn and a lot of soul development to earn. - AOD

Michael…

Just to clarify…yes, of course you’re absolutely right that the communicators appear to be in full agreement that “we awaken with the personality that we depart with.” They’re also, however, in near-unanimity that this is not a “forever” condition. “Level 3” (Myers’ “plane of illusion”)
attitudes are apparently not the same as Level 4 or level 5 attitudes.

An easy-to-understand example, and this has been discussed here before, comes from the concept of “time.” Here in this earthly existence, we live in a basically “linear” situation. The past leads directly into the present, and the present into the future. We obviously have a pretty clear understanding of what our “present” is like. We’re here. We also have a fair degree of understanding of the past—though that awareness is limited by the accuracy of our knowledge (either factually or
contextually/referentially) or the accuracy of the reported materials available to us. As for the future, we’re almost totally limited, with recourse only to what can be gleaned by purely logical projections.

If we could step ABOVE the linear sequence of events however,and look down on the whole scope of past, present, and future events from a higher vantage point—our knowledge-base immediately becomes vastly expanded. As our reference-point changes (grows), our ability to “know” grows accordingly.

I would suggest that this is precisely what happens as our “reference-point” changes from our present-life-based “small-p” personality—to our next-level-based “Big P” Personality as it develops on the other side.

Thanks for further clarifying, Amos. I agree this is a good discussion to have. And I can understand the argument that from a transcendent spiritual perspective, beyond the physical realm, conventional notions of good and evil or right and wrong fall away.

However, I would argue that even if we accept this premise, it doesn’t negate the importance of ethics and the real effects of our actions while we are incarnated in the physical realm interacting with other beings. Even if morality is to some degree a human construct, concepts like compassion, kindness, and even non-violence are universal spiritual values for good reason. They reduce suffering and create the conditions for all beings to thrive.

So while it may be true that from an absolute perspective, there is no ultimate condemnation, only learning, I believe great caution is warranted around considering all actions and experiences as somehow neutral or even positive. The trauma and damage caused by cruelty, murder, sexual violence etc. is very real and can have devastating effects on victims that may take many lifetimes to heal. Certainly, any philosophy of spiritual evolution I find plausible would see movement away from those behaviors as progress.

I worry that telling people good and evil don’t really exist and that there are no consequences could inadvertently encourage callousness and rationalizing harm. In your view, what prevents “it’s all one” from devolving into nihilism where “nothing matters?”

Anthony,
Thank you for reading my comment and providing a response.  I don’t think you completely misunderstood what I meant but I think I need to finesse it a little bit.  My comment and yours deserve a group discussion because, I think, they address the basic concepts of just what is a Soul Consciousness and how it navigates between a physical life and a life in the spirit world as well as the purpose for such transformations and the significance of the whole process.

So many of the discussions about an afterlife flounder on semantics and word choice so, of course it is difficult to talk about these issues and convey understanding.  First of all, I don’t think that at the higher vibrations of existence there is much concern for “right” or “wrong.”  There are no moral judgements or condemnations in the afterlife.  “Evil is just a dream gone awry.” The concepts of good or evil don’t exist in the afterlife.  Good and evil are societal concepts which have no underpinning in reality.  No one is condemned for their actions but everyone is brought to understand, from a spiritual perspective, what they did or didn’t do to express love for others and one’s self. Learning occurs and guidance is provided for soul evolution and reunification with the Universal Consciousness. Shame and regret during a life review after death may be felt as a way to cleans the Soul Consciousness and redirect its pathway in another incarnation, but no moral judgement is given. Morality is a societal and cultural construct.

As for me, my Soul Consciousness has evolved, I hope, from the time when I behaved in a non-loving way but nevertheless, I can’t help remembering when I led an unrestricted life and the exhilaration I felt in that life, especially when I now lead a life with multiple constraints on my person and time.

I believe that there is such a thing as soul evolution from a lesser soul to a more advanced soul both on the physical plane and on the spiritual.  And that we all go through that progression, becoming more knowing and loving as we advance through lifetime after lifetime in many different forms until we attain omniscience and reunification with Universal Consciousness. - AOD

Michael,

I love Paradoxes – I always remember finding my first one (Zeno’s tortoise) which was about the runner and the tortoise which fits snugly into your story. A tortoise starts off at half the pace of the runner (fast tortoise) with say a 50 meter headstart. The runner then runs to where the tortoise was. He/She gets there. However the tortoise has moved say 25 meters ahead. The runner then gets to where the tortoise was but the tortoise has moved 12.5 meters ahead. This happens over and over and the runner will always be behind the tortoise. He/She will NEVER OVERTAKE the tortoise. True the space that the tortoise is ahead gets to be smaller and smaller but tortoise is always ahead.

Zeno had about ten such paradoxes. I like the Limited and Unlimited one. (From https://iep.utm.edu/zenos-paradoxes/). It has to do with dense physical bodies and the gap between them. Where are our spirit friends? Summerland might be closer than you think.

“This paradox is also called the Paradox of Denseness. Suppose there exist many things rather than, as Parmenides would say, just one thing. Then there will be a definite or fixed number of those many things, and so they will be “limited.” But if there are many things, say two things, then they must be distinct, and to keep them distinct there must be a third thing separating them. So, there are three things. But between these, …. In other words, things are dense and there is no definite or fixed number of them, so they will be “unlimited.” This is a contradiction, because the plurality would be both limited and unlimited. Therefore, there are no pluralities; there exists only one thing, not many things. This argument is reconstructed from Zeno’s own words, as quoted by Simplicius in his commentary of book 1 of Aristotle’s Physics.”

We think of the afterlife as somewhere different but instead there may be only one thing. This means Summerland is here.

I was reading Eilleen Garrett Call me Lucifer (I get my book recommendations from a White Crow -now that’s a worry -talking crows) Lucifer was a companion to Garrett but not a control. Eilleen asks Where are you in in longitude and latitude? Are you under the waters or above? Where is your home? page 55

He turns my question back on me and asks “But where are you? Do you know? Aren’t you between two oceans? Where is your longitude and latitude? Wherever you find yourself – a man finds himself – there is my home”

I like Call me Lucifer as it is filled with such paradoxes. I find that the spirits have an expanded knowledge and often answer in what our thinking terms paradoxes.

I saw another quote from Survival Research Opposition and future developments by David Fontana (one of the three SPR investigators into The Scole Experiment.) He quoted Sir Oliver Lodge:

“Many find the concept of an after-life conceptually difficult, and confess themselves unable to imagine what it would be like to exist without a physical body, since so much of our present experience is mediated through the bodily senses (for a discussion, see Price, 1995). However, Sir Oliver Lodge argued that although “a bodily vehicle of some kind [is necessary] for the practical functioning of intelligence”, such a body need not “be composed of [the] opposite electrical charges that we call matter”. On the contrary, it is perfectly possible to “imagine another structure just as solid and substantial as matter is, but making no appeal to our present sense organs” (Lodge, 1928). In fact we experience such a body in dreams. The dream body is typically as real to us as its counterpart in waking life. Thus it is difficult to see why there should be any great imaginal problem in conceptualising such an existence and endowing it with sensory experiences analogous to those enjoyed in this life” (Journal of the Society for Psychical Research Vol. 68.4, No. 877 page 194)

Thanks,
Bruce

Thank you, Michael, for another thought-provoking post. I’d like to reply to Amos’ comment. It saddens me to think someone might long for a prior life of “plundering, raping and killing” … unless I’ve completely misunderstood what you mean. Even if we are here for every experience we may possibly need (or want), in my mind there has to be a line drawn between “this is right, that is wrong.” For my part, I would only feel shame and regret in this life if I knew I had been running a Nazi death camp in Europe during WWII in a prior one.

David, thanks for your comment.  It is all very abstract and you may very well be right, but I’ll go with all of the research suggesting that we awaken with the personality we depart with and cite the volumes of psychical research carried out by esteemed scientists and scholars, such as Lodge, Myers, Hyslop, Hodgson, Barrett, Wallace, and others in which individuals, such as George Pellew, communicated from the other side with much the same personality they departed with. They no doubt continued to evolve from that point and are no longer the same personality, just as we are not the same personality at 80 as we were at 20.

Perhaps we are on the same page but differ in the verbiage.  As I’ve often said, it seems to be beyond human comprehension and vocabulary. At least I can’t comprehend how we can be living past, present, and future lives all in the same moment, i.e., in a timeless and spaceless universe.

And thanks to Don for offering his views on the matter.

David Magnan:
I was rather astonished by your comment of September 26th.  The concepts which you addressed in that comment are concepts that I am currently researching and writing about.  And then I see today, a comment from Don Porteous about the same ideas.  I think that there must be some kind of spiritual evolution occurring in the world today as organized religion wanes, concerning these ideas of survival of consciousness versus survival of personalities. It may be a kind of morphic resonance, as proposed by Rupert Sheldrake, where a behavior or idea seems to spread among a species population “through a telepathic effect or sympathetic vibration”  That seems to be happening now among individuals in various parts or the world concerning exactly what it is that survives death.  Is it personality?  Or, is it one’s consciousness or soul.
Discussion of possible answers would require too much space for this blog but I have to respond to you comment in a meaningful way.  I would like to mention some of the other people who have proposed the same ideas you wrote in your comment.
 
Dr. Oliver Lazar in his book, “Beyond Matter “(2023) proposed that “[W]hen I die one day as Oliver the soul aspects that made me up will merge again with my main soul.  There I am stored eternally as Oliver and will never incarnate again in this constellation. …  In a new incarnation new parts of my main soul would again be combined and a new individual would be formed.  This new individual soul would then also carry the experiences and memories of me (Oliver).”

“[W]hen we return to our main soul, we will become aware that as human beings we have actually only slipped into a role.  We will perceive ourselves as a whole main soul, but we can slip back into the respective roles of our lives at any time. (Lazar pp 33-34)

Rosemary Brown, music medium channeled Franz Liszt who described the soul like an atom made up of protons and neutrons which all go to make up the nucleus surrounded by electrons.  “That is what the soul is like.  These separate parts are held together in the nucleus but the parts can be isolated.  And it is the isolated parts of the nucleus of the soul so to speak, which can manifest as various personalities in your world.  These are what the reincarnationist calls different incarnations—-but they all belong to one soul which can choose which particular part of the soul it wishes to manifest.” (Brown, 1971, p 117)

Liszt continues by saying, “that incarnations are ‘rather similar to having a wardrobe of clothes and deciding which ones to wear; or like an actor who plays different parts.  The actor remains the same.  It is only the playing of the role on stage which makes him seem different.’” (Brown 1971 p. 117-118)

Eric M. Weiss in his book “The Long Trajectory: Metaphysics of Reincarnation and Life After Death” (2012) wrote: “the personality that survives bodily death is itself mortal, and dies before any reincarnation takes place.” Weiss goes on to define a soul (Soul Consciousness) as “some entity other than personality that somehow holds memories of past lives and is, rather than the personality itself, the entity that reincarnates.”

Dr. James Matlock’s in his book “Signs of Reincarnation” (2019) disagrees with Weiss and writes: “I do not accept that there is amnesia for past lives at the subliminal level of mind, only at the supraliminal.”

Dr. Jim Tucker reported an inconclusive study of a little girl named “Olivia” who reported that she had lived another life before she was born as Olivia. “Olivia’s mother was asking her why she didn’t believe in God in her current life when she did in her past life, Olivia said that it was because “she was a different person now.”  Her mother asked her if she thought that she might have the same personality as she had in a past life?  Olivia said no, that “the personality was gone but the person was still there. Her mom asked if she meant that a ‘person’ and ‘personality ‘are two different things, and Olivia said yes.” (Tucker 2021 p.147) 

And even Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”  (From the play “As You Like It.”)

And finally, this is what I wrote:  “At one time every human experienced or will experience their Soul Consciousness in a physical form that changed from an infant into a small toddler, that changed into a small child, that changed into a preteen, then a teenager, then a young adult, then as a mature adult, then an old adult, then eventually as an elderly person barely able to contain the Soul Consciousness in a physical form any longer.  The physical form does not remain the same throughout that lifetime; it changes along with the personality over the years as one would change clothing, but the Soul Consciousness does not change.  A point is reached when the personality or subliminal self will have completed its purpose in life or the physical form no longer supports the Soul Consciousness and it is time for the subliminal self to bow to its applause, hang up its costume, go to the cast party and be remembered by the Soul Consciousness as another experience, another role it played in physical form.  The Soul Consciousness waits for another audition for another role or personality to play in the grand theater of life. During one’s lifetime, the form changed many times; it was not the same, but the Soul Consciousness was the same, except that through experiencing a challenging changing physical life as another personality, or as Frederic Myer’s subliminal mind, it was able to learn, to grow and to evolve into an enhanced version of itself, the Soul Consciousness, with greater understanding on its way back to the Source   from whence it came. On the way back, another lifetime may be required and experienced with a new costume and makeup and new lines to learn and a new personality. - AOD

David…

A very thoughtful piece, and I wouldn’t argue with a word you say.To expand just a bit…

This particular question is one of the central elements of my current book-in-process. Based on a pretty thorough review of most of the main sources (Swedenborg, Andrew Jackson Davis, Cora Scott, Stainton Moses, etc.) plus a handful of ancillaries—the simplest approach seems to be to regard our “being” in two separate ways (much along the lines you’ve pointed out): Firstly as the “self,” the personality or ego that we identify as, with changes and growth occurring over our finite lifetimes. These changes and growth will necessarily be limited based upon the specific nature of our circumstances within this lifetime.

Secondly, we have to consider our “Self” (upper case Self), which will be formed around the individual “spark of God” (I can’t say it better than that) which is pretty much universally claimed to reside at the very core of each of us. This larger Self will have its growth and development over the course of as many lifetimes, involving a far more diverse set of circumstances (gender, race, environment, etc.) perhaps many, perhaps few, as is necessary for its fullest development (or at least the level desired or considered appropriate by whoever/whatever the Controlling Influence is).

Beyond that, and as far as the details are concerned, all is mystery—in many cases, even to the communicating (and obviously, surviving) spirit entities themselves. For myself, it’s the very fact of the sheer large number of these surviving (P)ersonalities that allows me to readily accept the reality of it all, without having to insist on the knowledge of all of the fine points of the unknown underlying details.

I don’t think the matter is anywhere as simple as it’s being taken here, and just the truth of some sort of survival of physical death may or may not be “good” from the human personal standpoint as opposed to the soul’s. That makes for a somewhat lengthy comment, but here goes:

The deepest mystery is not whether or not there is survival, but rather what is it that survives. We humans typically identify ourselves in large part by our memories of our unique life going back to childhood and our current personalities derived from these countless experiences. While whatever it is that survives, presumably the soul, may at first in the process be mostly our ordinary self with some small degree of expansion, as in NDEs. But ultimately in the process this resultant “being” is more an “it” than a personal self in our sense at all, it is so expanded in consciousness and with the large number of other unique and different past lives now shared simultaneously in its memory, surely vastly changing its “personality”. This “self” is now it seems to me something alien to our human consciousness. I don’t see how at least from the human persective we can really identify ourselves with this “being”.
If this analysis and point of view is the case, then by ordinary human definitions, there isn’t really anything like long term “true survival” of our unique personal self, and we might as well get used to it and console ourselves that apparently the transformation process after death does not involve fear, but is gentle and loving, an involuntary indefinite expansion, opening up, of consciousness in a partially humanly consoling way analogous in small part to the long-term changes in personality and consciousness that take place automatically as a human matures from a baby consciousness to that of an old adult. Despite these vast changes in personal perspective, knowledge and some aspects of personality that took place over their prior life, most adults would still consider these former versions of themselves to each still be their unique personal self.

This analogy fails, unfortunately, when considering that in the expansion process the soul supposedly consciously incorporates in its composite personality a vast array of different separate unique former Earth lives, a vast increase in differentness over the natural progression of growth from baby to old adult happening in Earth life.

There is, apparently, the real survival of the unique human personal self for a limited period of time following physical death or near death conditions outside the body, before this transformation has taken place. This is evidenced by such paranormal phenomena as mediumistic communications, NDEs, and reincarnation memories of somehow what is remembered as the self choosing the next life. There are mediumistic communications with longer dead humans and they would along the lines of this model have to be explained as the greatly expanded soul “being” deciding (out of compassion and desire to console) to communicate with the living by taking taking on the guise of a small part of its now hugely expanded self - the sitter’s deceased loved one. This seems plausible to me.

Amos,

Thank you for your comments.  Concerning your question of why the fear of being killed in a war is so great, I think it is the “dying” part that is more feared rather than the “death” part of it, although there are many young people who haven’t lived long enough or thought about it enough to recognize the distinction.

I recently watched a movie series about The War of 1812 in which America invaded Canada five times.  I also have been looking at information related to WWI, researching for a book.  In watching the streaming movie of The War of 1812, I thought that the actors seem to be having much fun in the battles; charging, shooting, yelling, screaming, killing, falling over and dying in mock fear and agony on the fields of Canada bordering the territories of the United States.  Of course, the actors knew that they really wouldn’t die in that dramatization.

The thought came to me, that if we really believed, that is, really believed in survival of consciousness and reincarnation, and we believed that souls are given an opportunity to choose their next life, then some souls might anticipate that same fun by acting in a life as a warrior, fighting and dying on a battlefield. If death seems to be such an inconsequential thing as some spirits have related from the afterlife and consciousness may be reincarnated many, many times, then why is the fear of being killed in a war so abhorrent? 

From the perspective of the afterlife war is just an experience, an opportunity to feel strong emotions and perhaps to learn something about love and hate. Only from a physical perspective is that experience dreadful and senseless.  For those left behind, the experience of loss of a loved one may be an opportunity to experience grief, longing, loneliness, sadness, depression and anger, emotions that often last for a lifetime but sometimes bring us closer to God.

When I imagine (remember) a past life for myself, one of the most powerful, vibrant lives I remember is one in which I had no thought for myself or for others. (Didn’t worry about, cancer or heart disease, saturated fat and cholesterol or take supplements) It is one in which I was a marauder, a barbarian from the north riding my burly steed, not in battle, but riding with three or four other men, plundering, raping and killing as we destroyed small village after village.  Oh, the exhilaration of that life—-short though it may have been!  How I long for that life again!  -AOD

Mike,

Your paradox blog works well. Enjoyable.
I’ve always enjoyed the closing quotes you use from Richet and Crookes, and I even leaned a new word - anhedonia. 😄🍷

Mike S

Mike,

I always appreciate your insightful and clever observations!

Take Care!
YVONNE

This one’s a “keeper,” Michael.  Good job!